Sometimes I feel like the cocktail is the bastard stepchild of the food-writing world.
In the Statesman (our local daily), the beer writer covers the cocktail beat. In the Chronicle (our hippied-out free weekly), well-known local food writer Claudia Alarcon wrote last week an article that in my opinion showed a disconnect with the world of craft cocktails. She was covering the new Daily Juice After Dark event that is taking place each Thursday night in July at the Belmont. Featuring the fresh-juiced concoctions of Daily Juice owner Matt Shook, this event is a tremendous step up for the Belmont, which is a fabulously designed vintage cocktail lounge with hardly a drop of vintage cocktail mixology. “Four Cutting-Edge Cocktails” reads the headline, and the article describes Shook's juicy creations as being not just a delicious experience, but "one that's healthy and refreshing as well."
I don't get calling cocktails healthy (David Wondrich's opinion on this subject appeared in a recent Times piece on "healthy" cocktails.) Of course fresh juice is better than the commercial products the Belmont seemingly uses for most of its drinks, but that does not make it a smoothie. "Additive-free" American Spirit cigarettes are still bad for you, and liquor still taxes the liver regardless of how sexy the mixer. "Shook uses his knowledge of the ingredients," she writes, "and combines them with premium liquors to achieve the best possible taste and health benefits." Health benefits! Shook is the go-to man in Austin for juice, but this claim seems to be a pretty big stretch.
Another important thing is that these are not necessarily what I would call cutting edge. The use of fresh fruits and culinary ingredients has been on the rise for several years now (and the use of vitamins seems to me to border on the kitschy.) At a seminar I attended yesterday, Allen Katz and H. Joseph Ehrmann and they said that fresh is good, but it's an established fact. What is more ahead of the curve is green bars--which means seasonal and regional. Many of the drinks on the "cutting edge" Belmont menu feature tropical fruits with heavy carbon footprints. But what strikes me more is that Alarcon goes so far as to say, "I am going to take the leap and declare them the best cocktails I've ever had." She describes Schook’s elaborate preparation of fresh juices and claims that “the Cruzan rum is just there for fun.” Therein lies the problem. I imagine that these drinks taste delicious. But “the best cocktails…” is praise that I think should be reserved for more cocktailian preparations. By that I mean that the spirit shouldn’t be there “just for fun.” In a cocktail, the spirits are essential. Three of these drinks are made with either vodka or light rum, and this does not pique my interest as a mixologist. This is not to say that I wouldn’t want to kick back and drink one, which I intend to do when I get back to Austin next week, but as far as mixological alchemy, it really isn’t that interesting. To achieve “best cocktails” status I want to see some more interesting spirits and the juice taking a supporting role to these spirits. I don't mean here to dis Shook or Alarcon. Shook is a respected juice man. Alarcon is a well-known food writer; but in this case, she is a food writer gone wild.
While bastard stepchild-ness is definitely common in local rags like the Statesman and the Chronicle, I have noticed the phenomenon in publications the likes of the New York Times.
In a recent edition of the dining section, Florence Fabricant, one of the recognizable names in American food writing, reviewed a new Acai liqueur called Veev. Her recipe for an “Amazon Cozmo” surprised me in that she used Grand Marnier where most people utilize Cointreau, and that she chose such a played-out drink to showcase this spirit. (On this topic, a Tales attendee who shall remain unnamed said "Flo Fab?? I hate her! She's like 95 years old and doesn't know sh*t about cocktails." I obviously don't know Ms. Fabricant and so therefore cannot speak accurately of her age or cocktailicity, but I thought it was an amusing comment nonetheless.)
Last month Mark Bittman (of The Minimalist fame and a writer who I read regularly) wrote an article entitled "Add a Splash of Ad-lib" in which he appears to simplify the bulk of cocktail mixology to this: "You learn your preferences by mixing the drink at home, not according to someone else’s recipe, but according to your will." He then gives the simple formula that allows the home mixologist to create a slew of drinks from the Sidecar to the Kamikaze. I am a huge fan of demystifying mixology for non-mixologists. I do think, however, that The Minimalist has overly-minimized cocktail mixology. I think one of the problems with the state of bartending in so many places (ie everywhere but the great cocktail bars on the coasts) is that bartenders have overly simplified the process. They have not studied recipes and ingredients. They have never done the work to learn the origins of what we drink. They have worked too much 'according to their will.' I think people should learn the way they like their drinks. But they should first learn to make the drink properly, before creating their own interpretations.
Another glaring problem with this article is that it is very Regan-esque, but offers no attribution to Gary Regan.
Consider this passage:
Look at the pattern — you might call it the basic recipe — of these drinks, many of which might be grouped as “sours”: they combine liquor with water (usually in the form of ice), a sour flavoring (usually citrus juice) and a sweetener (simple syrup, or something more expensive and flavorful, like Cointreau).
This is very much the thrust of Regan's Joy of Mixology. Compare the passage from his book:
Definition: New Orleans Sours call for a base spirit, lemon or lime juice, and triple sec or another orange-flavored liqueur, such as curacao.
I feel like a cocktail writer would have recognized that what Bittman, whether intentionally or not, was espousing was a concept generally attributed to Gary Regan.
